Bombshell Read online

  Bombshell

  Jen Frederick

  Blurb

  My brain exploded at the supermarket. One minute I was arguing with my three-month-old about how many grapes she could stick in her tiny mouth and the next minute I was staring at the face of the father of my child.

  The guy ghosted me after I told him I was pregnant. I sent him texts, called him and even posted a certified letter but received zero response. While he was down for the baby-making activities, he had zero desire to accept the consequences.

  So I did what any other like-minded woman would’ve done in my position. I reached into my cart and started hurling things at him.

  To my surprise, he not only paid for the damage but followed me home. Now, he’s telling me he never got my messages or my letter and that he’s ready to be a father.

  He’s patching drywall, doing the laundry, and carrying the trash to the curb, and I’m remembering what it was like when he was loving me every night. A few heated stares and a few brushes of his hand against mine and my long-dormant female parts are roaring to life. Everyone’s going to think I’m a few French fries short of a Happy Meal if I let him back into my life, but my heart can’t keep asking what if…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 1 * WANT YOU*

  About the Author

  Also by Jen Frederick

  Chapter One

  “Where did you say you got that shirt again?” Mae asks. The svelte blonde in her heeled boots, black skinny jeans and carefully tousled bob leans over and places a bag of spinach in my cart.

  I pluck it out and place it back on the shelf. I don’t like spinach. I don’t care that all the parenting magazines talk about how high it is in nutrition. It tastes gross and if my daughter, who is currently gumming the back of her fist, could do more than make gurgling noises, I know she would agree with me. “In the back of my closet. You told me to wear something grown-up that didn’t consist of elastic and college concert tees.”

  After a year of watching me wear almost nothing but pajama pants and T-shirts, Mae had had enough. When she came over for her weekly visit, she took my computer and phone hostage and refused to give either back until I left wearing something that couldn’t be slept in. It took me nearly a half hour to find a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt that I should’ve thrown out months ago and not because the dark blue and forest-green flannel hangs down to near my knees.

  “That shirt does not look like it’s yours.” She eyes it suspiciously. “You had to roll the cuffs up three times and I still can barely see your fingers.”

  I try not to fidget. “It was in my closet and I haven’t slept in it.” At least not since I had Anna. Before then, well, I’ll admit that it might have been wrapped around my shoulders while I was in a prone position. Not that I’ll confess this out loud to even my best friend.

  “I guess it’s better than your Hufflepuff T-shirt with the holes in it,” she concedes and moves on from the lettuce produce to the vegetables.

  “That one is awesome, thank you very much.” Not to mention comfortable. Besides, since giving birth to Anna, I haven’t had the time or energy to shop. Babies require non-stop constant attention. I grab a bunch of bananas with one hand and pluck three grapes from my daughter’s fingers, which she somehow managed to snag when I wasn’t looking. “Anna, we talked about this. No food at the grocery store.”

  My girl scowls and gurgles a soft protest. Taking the three-month-old out of the house is always a challenge, which is why I prefer grocery delivery. And diaper delivery. And, basically, anything delivery. God bless delivery. I tap the monkey applique on Anna’s little cap to distract her. She clasps her pudgy fingers around my wrist. I let her pull my hand down to her mouth where she proceeds to gnaw on my knuckles.

  “It was awesome”—Mae tries to hide a bundle of kale behind the grapes—“ten years ago when you bought it and the matching pants on our senior trip to Universal. You’re twenty-eight now and they’re so worn I don’t think they qualify as clothes anymore. They’re just pieces of holey fabric held together with a little stitching.”

  Like me, I suppose. I brush a thatch of my straight brown hair out of my face. I should get a haircut. I haven’t had one in…how long has it been? Six months? A year? Mae was right to drag me out of the house. Still, that doesn’t mean I should eat kale. I tug my hand away from Anna and replace the leafy food with a bag of tomatoes.

  “And the hole around your right butt cheek,” Mae continues. “It’s big enough to stick a shoe through. How’d that happen anyway?”

  I brush my fingers over my backside. I’d forgotten about that hole. It did feel airy back there. Good thing the shirt was long. “I was putting Anna’s swing together and it caught on one of the bolts.” I reach in to grab the kale but am distracted when my daughter reaches for another grape. I shake a finger at her. “No more.”

  She merely grins impishly. Tiny dimples appear on either side of her mouth like periods to emphasize how stinking cute she is. An image of another person with heart-stopping dimples pops into my head—only his were larger but they served the same heart-melting purpose, which was to draw you in like a magnet. I push the memory away. The owner of those particular indents doesn’t exist in my life—or Anna’s.

  “You put that swing up last March and it’s nearly Christmas,” Mae reminds me, holding out an avocado.

  “Do I like avocados?” I take the fruit and set it beside Anna. “I can’t remember.” Since Anna, I’ve subsisted on apple sauce, peanut butter sandwiches, and the occasional peas.”

  “Don’t change the subject. You’ve been walking around with a hole in your butt for nearly nine months?”

  “It’s almost like I gave birth to it,” I joke. “What do you think, Anna?” I heft the lizard-skinned pear-shaped fruit into the air. “Do you want some avocado toast?”

  She makes a small bleating noise. Her pink, cupid bow lips purse into a pout that makes her cute chubby face even more adorable. I lean down and give her a peck. She coos and all is right in my world.

  “I don’t think she’s a fan.” I hand the avocado back to my friend. “I’m fine with peanut butter toast.”

  “Your dog eats peanut butter.”

  “Dobbie has elevated taste buds.”

  “He licks his own butthole.”

  “He’s a dog. He’s supposed to lick his own butthole and bark and chase his tail. These are dog things and I can’t prevent him from doing these things or else I risk disorder in the universe. I won’t be responsible for the consequences of that.”

  “Then eat an avocado.” Mae stretches out her long, dancer arms and waves the food in front of Anna. “What do you think, my darling girl? Shall we make avocado mush and grow to be big and strong?”

  My daughter, ever the wise one despite her young age, pushes Mae’s hands away and points to something on the shelf.

  “Broccoli? That’s my girl. I knew I was raising you right.” Mae snatches up a sad-looking bundle of the greenery and shakes it triumphantly in my direction.

  Thinking Mae is playing with her, Anna makes a grab for it. My friend barely escapes with the bushel intact.

  “Whew, she’s quick. She must get her good reflexes from her dad,” Mae says. At the D-word, Anna’s head jerks toward Mae. My friend slaps a hand over her mouth. “Oh fuc-dge,” she exclaims. “I’m so sorry, Kate! It just slipped out.”

  I take a brief moment to curse the sperm donor and then give my friend a sympathetic pat on the back. Pushing the cart forward, I say, “Forget it. It’s not like he’s Voldemort. He’s not going to appear just because you say his name.”

  If that were the case, I would’ve conjured him a million times when I was pregnant with Anna.

  “I'm still sorry. It was dumb. I hope it doesn’t bother her.” Mae tips her head in the direction of my daughter, who has abandoned the grapes and is now studying the avocado.

  “She’s fine.” I reach over and grab the fruit. “It’s a new word for her.” It was in a book we’d read the other night. I sensed that the word interested her, maybe because I stumbled over it and then sat there for a long time trying to figure out how to explain to my daughter that her dad abandoned us once he found out she was on the way.

  The asshole. While I was pregnant, I read a child-rearing book that said that you should never criticize your kid’s parent because it can poison the relationship. But you can’t have a relationship with someone who won’t acknowledge your existence.

  “Right.” Mae adopts a cheerful expression. “It’s just one word in a whole world of words. It’s meaningless. It’s—oh my fucking God. It’s Voldemort.”

  Mae flings her arm out, pointing toward the end of the aisle as if she’s seen a ghost. Her outburst catches the attention of a tall, broad-shouldered figure. My jaw drops and my blood pressure rises. Beside me, Mae shouts something, but I can’t make it out because a roar of outrage is detonating in my head at this very moment.

  My stomach roils and the coffee and bagel I savored this morning climb up the back of my throat. The six-foot four-inch frame of Jack Harris begins to twist on those shiny dress shoes of his and his beautiful face comes into view. His jawline is sharp. His cheekbones sit high on an oval face. One eyebrow is arched high. Lush lips part in surprise as he takes in what must be an odd picture—two women open-mouthed and growing red like the tomatoes stacked on the shelves and a
baby starting to cry in her carrier.

  It’s as if we’re all in slow motion. Me, turning slowly with my feet puttied to the floor. Him, doing his best imitation of Neo in The Matrix bending backwards to avoid being struck, only this time it’s not bullets that are flying in his direction, but it’s an avocado—the one from my cart.

  I didn’t even register reaching beside Anna and plucking it from my cart. I don’t remember winding my arm back like I’m a pitcher and flinging it, but it must’ve been me.

  “Is there something wrong?” he calls, brushing a hand against his expensive suit coat.

  “Since when do you wear suits?” I yell irrationally. Like wearing suits instead of his ordinary uniform of blue jeans and white T-shirts is the worst sin he’s committed.

  “Since…forever,” he answers. Confusion mars his perfect brow.

  It’s his playacting that lights the fuse of my temper. If he’d apologized, if he’d at least said my name, if he’d done anything but act as if he’d never seen me before let alone had his dick and tongue and fingers inside me a hundred times, maybe I would’ve been able to corral my rage. But his stupid eyebrow and his stupid beautiful face and his stupid fake confusion unwind something primal inside me.

  I—who has never thrown anything at anybody in my whole life, including my fifth-grade chorus teacher Mrs. Wilson who said frogs had better voices or the snot-nosed Henry Watts who poked sticks against my belly and called me fat when I was ten—I grab the closest thing to me and whip it toward my ex. The broccoli bunch strikes him on the shoulder. He jerks back in surprise as if I’d shot him.

  “Here. This one, too.” Mae shoves something else in my hand—something red and squishy. I launch it unthinkingly. Before it lands, I have another tomato in my hand and then another. I can’t stop. I’m a tornado of fruit and bread and jars.

  “Stop. Stop!” someone yells, but I can’t stop, but my cart’s almost empty. Desperately, I look around and realize I’m standing by an end cap full of s’more ingredients. Bypassing the marshmallows, I go straight for the candy bars.

  “Not the chocolate,” Mae yells, but I’m not listening.

  Jack ducks and slides to the side while the six pack of candy bars falls harmlessly to the floor. “I’m sorry, but I take it that I look like someone you know?”

  “Someone I know? Someone I know?” I’m getting lightheaded with my anger.

  “Oh, you did not say that.” Mae slaps another container in my hand. “Pelt that ass with all the chocolate in the land.”

  “I thought you were dead! You didn’t call. You didn’t text. I thought you were dead. And then I get some half-assed letter saying not to contact you again?” I hurl the container without looking at it. Jack tries to dodge, but I guessed correct this time and the bars smack him in the chest.

  “Direct hit,” Mae crows. “Here’s another one— Hey, wait a sec.”

  At Mae’s yelp, I turn and see two apron-clad young men trying to corral her. I lunge to help my friend but lose my footing. I can feel my uncoordinated body tip forward. A scream flies out of my throat. Mae reaches for me, but she’s too far away. Like a giant tree, I start falling.

  “Omigod omigod omigod!” Mae wails.

  “Holy shit!” someone else cries.

  “Help,” I say, but I fear it’s too late. The floor is rushing toward me. I cover my sore belly. The C-section scar aches, so I twist as best as I can with my extra twenty post-pregnancy pounds hanging around my mid-section. As I fall, I hear a deep grunt and feel a pair of strong hands push me upright.

  “You,” I snarl, but my words are cut off when I feel the stitches break. I look down to see blood seeping through my shirt. “You ruined my clothes.”

  “She just had a baby. Call 9-1-1! She’s bleeding.” Mae wrestles away from her captors.

  “This is your fault,” I inform the dark-haired man cradling me.

  “I know it is.”

  “You know?” I can’t believe this.

  "You did say I got you pregnant.”

  Those are the last words I hear before I pass out.

  Chapter Two

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Jack explains to one of the two police officers that arrived on the scene at the request of the store manager. “There’s no harm done.”

  He says this with a straight face despite the produce aisle looking like a tornado whipped through it. The avocado section is decimated and the tiled floor has taken on a sickly green hue. Streaks of red have painted the display case of cakes and pastries.

  The police officer, though, appears totally snowed by Jack’s explanation. I should be unsurprised. After all, wasn’t it Jack’s ability to talk that had me dropping my skirt to the floor just a few hours after we’d first met?

  “How exactly do you two know each other?” The tall, thin officer taps his pen against his electronic notepad.

  I try to struggle to my feet

  Mae unhelpfully steps in. “He’s the rat—

  “—rather tall man who ran into my grocery cart,” I interject in a hurry. Mae crosses her arms and scowls, displaying an uncanny resemblance to my baby. Both of them have a very sullen set to their lips, which signals an impending tantrum—not that I can judge them. Obviously, I couldn’t hold it together when faced with my awful ex, but he’s been staring at Anna in a way that makes me nervous. “Look, if there’s a fine or something, I’ll pay that, but I need to get my child home.”

  Anna’s been whimpering like a lost child since I roused. I told her that I just closed my eyes for a little nap, but the worried look on her face hasn’t left. I need to get her out of his sight. The last thing I need to deal with is some stupid custody battle. Anna’s mine and mine alone. This man—this penishead—doesn’t have any right to her. What I should have done when I saw him was grab Anna and book out of the grocery store. We’d be safe then.

  “Lady, you might want to call your mom to pick up the kid.” This morsel of advice is from the policeman who glued himself to my side as if I’m a danger to the public and not the tall, well-built man pulling out a credit card from an expensive leather wallet. “If this man decides to press charges, you’ll have to go down to the city jail.”

  “What?” I exclaim.

  “No fucking way,” Mae rages. “My friend needs a medic.”

  "Waahhhh!” Anna begins to wail. I press her head against my breast and ignore the twinge in my abdomen.

  “I’m not pressing charges.” Jack waves the credit card. “Let me pay for the damage and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Ugh. The nerve of him.” Mae crouches down next to me. “How are you doing?”

  “I thought I ripped my stitches,” I tell her. I lift Anna up off my stomach. “But apparently it was just blowback from the tomatoes I threw. It’s not blood. I just want to go home.”

  “Then let’s go.” She helps me to my feet. Anna clings to my neck as I stand up. “There’s lettuce in your hair,” murmurs Mae as she helps me shuffle toward my abandoned cart.

  Of course I do. With all the produce that I sent flying toward Jack, I’m surprised it’s only lettuce. I should be wearing an entire garden.

  I brush a hand over my scalp, but before I can get it, Jack is in front of me and his hand is outstretched. I flinch back. Hard. Jack’s hand falls to his side and a flicker of disappointment passes over his face.

  “I’ve paid the damages and we’re all free to leave.” He waves his hand toward the doorway.

  The tall, thin cop comes up behind Jack. “You sure we can’t call you an ambulance, Mr. Harris? It looks like you’re growing a knot on the side of your head.”

  My eyes fly to Jack’s left temple, above his dark brown eyes. His own fingers come up and lightly smooth over the visible bump.

  “It’s all good,” he says soothingly. His words are directed toward the cop, but his gaze is locked with mine.

  “If you say so.”

  Jack tears his eyes from mine and holds out his hand. “Thanks for all your help.”